How societies were

organized

Quirante, Hermelo Jr.

Social Archaeology

 Cultural / Social Anthro.

 Visiting a present society & forming conclusions
about its social & power structures before other
matters
 Social Archaeology
 Systematic / gaining basic details
 Understanding of the social organization of
societies at many different points in time, with all
the scope for studying change
Nature and Scope of Society

 2 perspectives being used

 “top down” – looking at society from above, and
investigating its organization
 “bottom-up” – gender, status and age were
constituted and that they were constructs specific
to each society
Classification of Societies

 4-fold classification by Elman Rogers Service

 Hunter-gatherers (bands)
 Segmentary societies (tribes)
 Chiefdoms
 Early states
Scale of the Society

 Understanding of the settlement pattern thru

surveys
 Survey
 Location of major centers
 Using sampling strategy
 Main centers usually have the most impressive
monuments, & finest artifacts
Settlement Patterning

 Classification of sites thru the given

information
 Site categories
 Regional center
 Local center
 Nucleated village
 Dispersed village
 hamlet
 Central Place Theory
 set of ideas and principles developed by the German
geographer W. Christaller in the 1930s to explain the
spacing and function of settlement patterns.
 Site Hierarchy
 Thiessen Polygon
 XTENT Modelling
Further sources of information for social
organization
 Emphasis on the concept of analogy wherein
certain processes or materials resemble each
other in other ways also
 Written Records
 Oral Traditions
Ethnoarchaeology

 focuses on the material remains of a society,

rather than its culture.
 not restricted to observations at the local
scale
Studying Hunter-Gatherer societies
 Approach depends on the nature of sites
 Cave sites
 Defined by debris scattered within the cave itself &
outside it
 Occupation deposits tend to be deep

Tabon cave
 Open sites
 Artifact distribution might be as a result of human
activity on the spot (in situ)
 Or materials have been transported by flowing water &
redeposited
 Investigation includes:
 Controlled excavation procedure
 Detailed sampling
 Careful recording
 Plotting the densities of finds
Investigating Territories in Mobile
Societies
 Includes:
 Annual home range
 Home base camp
 Transitory camp
 Hunting blinds
 Butchery or kill sites
 Storage caches, etc.
 Individual site assemblages are interpreted
as parts of a broader pattern
Studying Segmentary societies

 Investigating territories in sedentary societies

 Permanent settlements incorporates a greater
range of functions than mobile groups
 Settlements are either:
 Agglomerate
or
 dispersed
Ranking from Individual Burials

 a close analysis of grave-

goods can reveal much
about disparities in social
status
 Communal or collective
burials are difficult to
interpret
 the analysis will seek to determine:
 Gender differences
 Age differences in burial
 Status whether achieved or ascribed
 Ranking is not expressed solely in the grave
goods, but in the entire manner of burial
Collective Works & Communal Action
 Public monuments are also another prime
source of social evidence
 Involves questions like:
 Size & scale
 Spatial distribution in the landscape
 Clues about status of individuals
 Monument’s structure tells of organizational
capacity
 Suggests of being a focal point of the territory
of the group
 Locations have meanings for respective
groups of people
 Visibility is important
 Monuments associated with a prominent
individual indicates person of high rank
Relationships between Segmentary
Societies
 Relationships like marriage ties, exchange
partnerships, etc. exists in segmentary
societies
 Looking for the ritual centers that served for
periodic meetings of several groups is the
first step in investigation
Studying Chiefdoms and States
 Identifying Primary centers
 Size of the site
 From written records
 Symbolic indications of centralized organization
 Presence of buildings of standardized form
 Artifacts suggestive of the function of a major
center
 Fortifications, presence of mint where coinage
was used
 Functions of the Center
 Kingship
 Bureaucratic organization
 Redistribution & storage of goods
 Organization of rituals
 Craft specialization
 External trade
Techniques for study
 Abandoned sites
 Establish a topographic map
 Study of the major ceremonial and public buildings
 Intensive sampling of artifact materials from the
surface
 Occupied sites
 Has to be long term
 Take every opportunity provided by the clearing of a
site for new construction
 Building a pattern of finds that will eventually take a
coherent shape
Administration beyond the Primary Center
 Organizational mechanisms need not be
restricted to the primary center
 Search for “artifacts of administration”
 Clay sealings
 Imprints of royal authority
 Display of a royal coat of arms
 Roman milestone of a road, etc.
 Standardization of weights and
measurements
 Existence of a good road system
 Defensive works

Ancient Incan road system

 Social Ranking
 Elite residences
 Greater wealth
 Depictions of the elite
 Burials
 Economic Specialization Ancient Roman villa

 Intensified farming
 Taxation, storage and distribution
 Craft specialists
 Relationships between centralized societies
 External contacts are not simply in terms of the
exchange of goods; they are also social relations
 Traditionally, “influence” of a primary center on
secondary areas is often called “diffusion” of
culture
 Most interactions takes place between neighbors
of roughly equal size & power
 Role of Warfare
 Not all territorial expansion
 Competition
Archaeology of the Individual & of
Identity
 “top down” Approach
 Starts with questions of organization, hierarchy,
power, centralization, & then to the individual,
his/her role, gender, status, & experiences
 “bottom-up” Approach
 Involves consideration of networks of social
relationships
 Operates on the level of the individual
 Pierre Bordieu
 Social concepts, such as the categories which we
habitually use when speaking for instance of age,
or gender or class are constructs of our own
society & ultimately ourselves
Emergence of Identity & Society
 Personal adornments indicates personal
identity
 Use of personal adornments became much
more marked with the onset of sedentism
 Occurs in the same time as: development of
ritual activity & construction of monumental
buildings
 Social identities & social groups came from
interactions in the performance of shared
activities
Investigating Gender & Childhood
 Initially felt to overlap with feminist
archaeology
 It illuminates the role of women in the past
more clearly
 Distinction between gender & sex
 Sex – biologically determined, male/female
 Gender – social construct, involving sex-related
roles of individuals
 “essentialists”
 Emphasizing on supposedly “inherent”
differences between men & women &
emphasizing women’s links to the natural world
thru reproduction
 “third wave” feminism in the 1990’s
 More than male or female
 Gender is part of a broader social network
Molecular Genetics of Social groups &
Lineages
 Approaches
 Examine genetic relationships at the individual
level
 Examine the long term genetic history of the
wider social group or “tribe”
end